Calvinball Makes the Supreme Court

Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson, on page 17 of her dissent in National Institutes of Health v. American Public Health Association:

In a broader sense, however, today’s ruling is of a piece with this Court’s recent tendencies. “[R]ight when the Judiciary should be hunkering down to do all it can to preserve the law’s constraints,” the Court opts instead to make vindicating the rule of law and preventing manifestly injurious Government action as difficult as possible. This is Calvinball jurisprudence with a twist. Calvinball has only one rule: There are no fixed rules.6 We seem to have two: that one, and this Administration always wins.

The footnote refers to the OED’s entry for “Calvinball”.

★ Tuesday, 26 August 2025